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I have a distinct tendency to become sick or injured dramatically. This was most certainly the case the first time I ever visited Texas.

It all began at a track meet in Eugene, Oregon. Despite suffering from a debilitatingly itchy, full-body rash brought on by a Flintstones vitamins overdose, I had the race of my life and qualified for the NCAA Midwest Regional meet in Austin, Texas.

I was beyond excited. My days were filled with farfetched fantasies of how I was going to win regionals and then qualify for nationals and somehow win that too. I visualized myself on the podium, bowing my head gracefully to accept my gold medal as the National Anthem played delicately in the background and confetti fluttered around me.

I don't even know if that's what happens when you win a national championship, but that's the way it worked in my fantasy. My entire existence was focused like a laser beam on that one race, sometime at the very end of May.

However, there was a small part of my mind that recognized a few crushing disadvantages, chief among them the reality that the race was in Texas at the beginning of summer and I had been training all year in frigid Montana. Add to this that I would be attempting to race a 5k despite the fact that I have never been good at handling the heat even when lying motionless on my floor in my underwear in front of a fan, and you have a disaster waiting to happen.

But the reality turned out worse than anyone could have predicted.

A couple of my teammates and I boarded the plane at 5:00 AM. I had barely slept the night before because I was so excited about my race.

When we arrived in Texas, I stalwartly ignored the heat waves radiating off the tarmac. "I'll deal with it somehow..." I thought.

After we checked into our hotel, I went for a little run to shake out my legs. Immediately upon exiting the air-conditioned lobby of the hotel, I finally had to acknowledge the reality that my body is the opposite of good at dissipating heat. It doesn't even try. It's like it doesn't care at all about my well-being and comfort. Less than a mile into my run, I was reduced to a shambling jog. Breathing was like trying to insufflate syrup through a coffee straw. It was at this point that I began to panic a little.

I stumbled back to the hotel and took a shower to cool off. The shower water was lukewarm and smelled like it had been siphoned out of a duck pond. It was less than refreshing and made me smell like a swamp monster. Still soaking wet, I lay down on my bed and tried to eat a banana. My innards groaned like the Titanic just before it split in half. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a tiny voice began to scream "you're gonna die!!!"

After weathering another sleepless night, I dragged my protesting body out of bed and down to the lobby, intent on ingesting massive amounts of caffeine. The coffee tasted like it had been made with the pond water that came out of the shower, but it served its function. Aching joints and creaky innards aside, I felt like I was ready to take on the world.

This was the high point of the entire trip. It was the last moment I felt even vaguely lucid.

The rest of the day was spent waiting in agonizing apprehension. My bloodstream was a putrid slop of stress hormones and enraged white blood cells. Something was obviously not right. I tried to blame it on the heat. I tried to blame it on my nerves. It was more than that; an immune-system assault so massive that it singlehandedly managed to shatter my dreams and my dignity all in one shot.

The hours leading up to my race went pretty much like this:

And by that, I mean that I sat in my hotel room all by myself in a terrifying, delirious stupor, which I later found out was the result of a 104.5 degree fever. In spite of my obvious illness (and perhaps due in part to my delirium), I remained steadfastly determined to go through with my athletic conquest. I did not come all the way to Texas to let some stupid illness get between me and my dreams of glory.

I don't remember how I got to the track. I know I was supposed to walk there because it was only a few blocks from the hotel, but I have no recollection of the time between sitting in my room and actually arriving at the track. What I do remember are the fireflies I saw on my warmup. Let me tell you something - if you've never seen fireflies before, you probably should try to avoid seeing them for the first time when you're out of your mind with a fever. I had no idea what was going on.

I also remember being hotter than I had ever been before. I felt like I wanted to tear off my skin. The ambient temperature was nearly 100 degrees even though it was starting to get dark and the humidity felt suffocating. I was still unwilling to admit to feeling less-than-adequate, so I stumbled around campus like a drunk, trying my hardest to keep my spirits up. "I can do it!" I thought. "I just have to believe in myself!" It was pathetic.

The more I jogged around, the higher my internal temperature crept. By the time I changed into my uniform and racing spikes, I could barely focus. The fireflies flitted around, taunting me with the unsettling feeling of not being able to tell if I was hallucinating or not. In a last ditch attempt to maintain homeostasis, I packed my sport bra and racing briefs with ice cubes.

Before I knew it, there I was on the starting line of the biggest race of my life; melty ice water trickling down my torso and the inside of my legs, uniform packed full of ice cubes. It looked like I had some sort of strange disorder that made me all lumpy and caused me to continuously pee on myself. It was not one of my prouder moments.

When the starter's gun went off, I sprinted off the line with the rest of the girls, ice jiggling around inside my clothes and flying out of my briefs onto the track.

It did not take long for my championship dreams to fizzle out to a barely audible whine in the fuzzy depths of my consciousness.

I fell further and further back from the rest of the field, but kept doggedly pursuing my quest for greatness until the moment I passed out.

I remember trying to punch the volunteer who dragged me off the track before I completely lost consciousness. The next few hours were a blur of concerned coaches and doctors and tubes and thermometers.

That night, I couldn't sleep again. I was so afraid that I was going to die alone in my hotel room that I crawled down to the lobby of the hotel and tried to sleep on one of the couches there.

My logic was that if I started dying, maybe someone would notice and help me.

Still delirious the next morning, I woke up and immediately decided that I needed juice more than anything in the world. I would have shanked an infant for juice.

For some reason, I thought that it would be a good idea to walk to the grocery store by myself. I didn't even know where the grocery store was. I just kind of picked a direction and started walking. Every now and then I made a turn. I felt like I was trusting my instincts, but really I was just wandering around hoping to stumble across a grocery store. About a mile or so from the hotel, I began to notice that the houses on the street I was walking down had bars over all the windows. There were bullet holes in a couple of the cars parked along the street and broken glass littered the sidewalks. That's when I realized I was not in a very good neighborhood. And I was lost.

This might not be a big deal for some people, but for a weak and possibly dying girl who spent most of her life in the woods of rural north Idaho, it was pretty terrifying. I quickened my pace, which really only served to propel me faster in an unknown direction.

Amazingly, I did eventually find a grocery store. It was the most confusing grocery store I have ever been in. First of all, most of the signs were written in Spanish. I speak a little Spanish, but it did me very little good because there was no order to anything in the entire store. The shelves were packed with various foods and toiletries, but none of it was grouped into any sort of easily-recognizable category. The dry pasta was next to some random shampoo bottles and a box of Reese's peanut butter cups. A few aisles down from that, there was more shampoo, but now it was accompanied by salsa and something called "energy balls" which appeared to be homemade chocolate balls with coffee beans stuffed into them, rolled up inside a plastic sandwich bag. Birds flew freely throughout the store and a centrally-located tank of live lobsters made the whole place smell like rancid seawater. It was like some horrific wonderland of confusion. I was never going to find juice and I was never going to be able to go home. I sat down in the middle of what appeared to be the "yellow things aisle" and began to weep quietly.

Eventually a kindly man found me and asked me what was wrong in Spanish. I tried to explain to him that I was lost and I really wanted some juice, but in retrospect, I'm pretty sure I asked him if I could "play puppy," which doesn't make any sense at all in that context. Obviously perplexed, he led me to a lady named Angelica who had the best mullet I've ever seen and, perhaps more importantly, could speak English. I asked her about the juice.

Angelica led me to a slightly refrigerated back room where the juice was kept. I selected a gallon jug of strawberry-guava juice, opened it right there in front of Angelica and began chugging. She looked displeased, but I was obviously not well and I think her sympathy won out in the end. I followed her back to the cash register, paid for my juice with a sweaty wad of dollar bills and began the journey back to my hotel.

All I can remember from this point in the trip is staggering down the street clutching my guava juice, trying my best to stay conscious in the hot sun.

Just as I don't know how I found the grocery store, I have no idea how I eventually ended up back at my hotel. I don't think anyone even knew I was gone.

Later that evening, a few teammates woke me up and reminded me that I still hadn't celebrated my very recent 21st birthday. This being the case, I was expected drink (read: buy alcohol for everyone else). Being impulsive, I reluctantly grabbed my wallet and walked with my friends to a gas station (which carried juice and was only about three blocks from the hotel in the opposite direction). I tried to buy a six pack of beer but my newly legal I.D. was turned down because it was out of state and I "looked like a goddamn 16-year old." The cashier ended up selling the beer to my friend who was only 20 and had a fake I.D.

Back at the hotel, I tried to halfheartedly drink a beer and talk with my teammates, but I think I just ended up passing out on the floor. We had to wake up to catch a really early flight, so I didn't get to sleep very much. I woke up feeling even worse than I had the day before, in a half-conscious stupor. I remember lurching around the airport with my eyes closed, dragging my backpack on the ground, trying to just stay reasonably close to my teammates' voices.

We had a long layover in Denver, so I tried to get some sleep under a row of seats near our terminal. The airport was really quiet at such an early hour, but our terminal was right next to a moving sidewalk from which a very loud, automated voice emanated roughly every minute. It was an annoyingly cheery robotic female voice warning people, in English and Spanish, that the moving sidewalk was coming to an end and to watch their step. It seemed completely unnecessary and I think that's what really ended up getting to me in the end.

It had been three days since I'd gotten over a few measly hours of sleep and it felt like that stupid lady-robot was forcefully robbing me of every bit of psychological integrity I had left. After an hour of trying to sleep unsuccessfully, I finally got up to try to find a solution. Anything. If I didn't sleep, I felt like I was going to implode and explode at the same time, and whatever came out of me was going to be dangerous, possibly some sort of plague demon.

And that's how I ended up having a complete psychological meltdown in an airport.

You know, I've been reading your blog for a while now (and I've read every bladder-emptying post) but have never commented. Long time reader, first time commenter . . . I guess.

ANYWAY. The point of this comment is to say that I love you and have engaged many a muscle trying not to laugh too loudly in order to keep the peace with my neighbors. This post is no different, although it sounds like a traumatic experience.

Well, that's it I'm hooked. Your blog is so funny, and I'm guaranteed to get the giggles whenever I visit. Please keep doing this, everyone needs more giggles in their lives. I also understand small things sending you over the edge. Happened to me in a cafeteria with some bad pizza, it happens to the best of us.Thanks for being so rad,

I cry because of sickness to death. But then I laff because of almost having shank baby (needs pix). But then I cry again because of also more sickness having almost to death in Texas. You win daytime emmy of Internet. Yay!

I know this was a couple years ago, but you wandered right into my neighborhood looking for juice... And you raced (and fainted) at the track right across the street from the parking lot I use to go to school in. Wow.

Oh, Jesus I have totally been in your situation. I play softball and live in Arizona so it gets to the triple digits out here. I had a super high temperature and tried to play softball even though I could barely stand. It ended about the same way yours did.

Awesome post... and the point to all of your suffering was so that we could all startle the people sitting the room with us as we read about it... by laughing and almost snorting things out of our noses. Glad you survived... but you might want to steer clear of Texas! :)

"It looked like I had some sort of strange disorder that made me all lumpy and caused me to continuously pee on myself." Ha!

I live in Austin- while reading I was trying to figure out where you were. You appear to catch deadly plagues quite often. While I'm sure this is quite awful for you- it results in delightful reading material. Kudos!

My last airport experience was SHOCKINGLY similar to that...including the crying under the seats in the terminal, the deliriousness, and the unsuccessful hunt for earplugs. Pure trauma...at least you can make me laugh about it. :-D

D: RARGH!!! I got lost LEAVING the Dallas/ Fort Worth Airport when I dropped my husband off for a flight the year before last. We had a hotel room less than 15 minutes away and it took me 3 hours, including my psychotic meltdown where I called my parents who were 10 hours away crying. Also, I'm allergic to the water in Texas and it makes me look beautiful like your rashy pictures. D:

i am laughing so hard! i just moved to houston texas from california. i understand what you said about the heat! ugh! i miss my cali weather! last summer i was huge and pregnant in the middle of summer! the worst! i wish i could walk around with ice in my pants! people would probably think i was koo-koo la la, people aren't as open minded here in houston as they are in SF. there i could walk around with a tin foil hat on and they wouldn't give me a second look!

We were stuck in DIA overnight with a newborn and a 18 month old. I almost stabbed the stupid moving sidewalk bitch in the eye-no matter that she's not really a person and lacking said eye. Great job as usual:)I want the cracked out "I'm going to be a champion" slide framed for my desk:)

You are a TROOPER, woman! If it had been me, I would have stayed in my room and slept. Hell, who are we kidding? If it had been me, I would never have made it to Texas, because I run about as fast as a toddler.

All of your near-death experiences seem to exist solely to remind me what a fighter I am not. Keep up the good fight, Allie!

I, too, have tried to deny being sick despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

In fact, it was probably not even a year ago that I woke up in the middle of the night feeling as though the contents of my stomach had transformed into acid, lava, and hatred. I spent an undeterminate number of hours splayed across the cold tiles in my bathroom before I realized that I had to go to work. And, somehow, I thought that that was going to be just dandy.

I don't remember driving to work. Which is always good. When I got there--I was a bartender at the time, mind you--I was 45 minutes late. I stumbled in, no makeup, unbrushed hair, and a pleasant look of death upon my face. I looked at everyone and then promptly headed to the bathroom. After I'd spent a little more time praying to the porcelain gods, I came back out to find my manager waiting outside of the door.

He told me he was incredibly impressed that I'd actually made it to work, but that it was probably best that I just go home. I didn't have to be told twice. I gathered my purse, got into my car and went home. I slept, straight through until the morning of the next day.

Ali, I'm so glad you're not dead again! Or sucked up by a spaceship. Or kidnapped by black market organ venders. Guess you were just suffering from Post Tejas Heat Disorder. Not uncommon. Wonders whether Houston in August is worse than the gates of hell, but I s'pose so. It's the HUMIDITY. And I haven't been on the Gulf Coast since it was remodeled by BP (sucks), so it would be even gushy-stickier now. Keep drinking your juice and POST else the world will fall off its axis and fall into the sun and life as we know it will end. Or be a lot like a summer track meet in Texas. But with less juice.

By the way God must ADORE and have a big plan for you honey, because it can only be considered a miracle that you're alive after all the sh*t you've been through. Craziness! Me encanta (Spanish for, I love it!).

Wow, as a resident of Texas I wholly apologize for your horrible visit to the state. And also as a resident of Texas, I can assure you that you're lucky you were only in Austin! I just moved to the coast near Houston like two weeks ago, and it's almost completely unbearable. Too bad I'll be here for three more years while I finish grad school. If it's not the blistering heat (it was a cool 90 degrees today), it's the 85% humidity that causes my mascara to start running about 5 minutes after I walk outside. Or it's the mosquitoes that infest every square inch of the air inside and out. Did you know mosquitoes can also live in refrigerators? Here they do!

...but now I'm thinking I may try the ice cube in the pants thingy. I mean, whether its sweat or ice, I still look like I peed my pants, so might as well be comfortable! Thanks for the great idea girl!

Oh Allie Brosh! I think running is of the devil and this only bolsters my argument. Obviously it can nearly kill you.Sorry Texas sucked! I hope you've had a good trip there since then, it can be nice when you aren't dying.So glad you've survived your recent set of adversities! :)<3 you!

Ah, the sleep-deprived, hallucinating, paranoid psycho freak. I had an experience like that back in February. Not the sick park, but the sleep-deprived. Staying up for 3.5 days straight with only 6 hours of sleep total (and no time to stop and eat) while trying to finish projects with an X-acto blade AND driving to the presentation... ALL while not physically knowing what I was talking about during the presentation. My professors sure know how to look after our health when they cut an entire week off a project. GOTTA LOVE IT.

I went to college in Austin at UT and I got that sick. I lost 15 pounds in one week and then took the next week off for good measure, but instead of telling my professors the truth, I told them that my grandfather passed away and I had to fly to Pakistan last minute. I guess I thought they wouldn't believe the sick story. I also experienced the side walk is coming to an end when lady while I was stuck in Midway all night. It was doubly annoying because the sidewalks are so short to begin with. WHY ARE YOU EVEN ON IT?!

You struck a chord here! I can imagine that more than one of us has ended up in a freak out in a public space before. It's not fun. I always wanted people to know what brought me to that point (not that it's happened more than 2 or 3 times for me): You've told a great story about what was behind the point where everyone had to start paying attention.

Allie:Awesome story!Funny you should post a piece on running today...I discovered a very real example of irony...I had an MRI this afternoon in which I discovered that I have what athletes call "Runner's Knee"...the catch? I'm not an athlete...not even in the loosest definition of the term! I actually hurt my patella due to a misalignment caused by my multiple level spinal fusion surgery...which is SO not vaguely connected to exercise or athleticism...Anywho, the plus side to today is that I took a nap in the MRI machine. Downside? I twitched and the tech had to start over...but at least I didn't drool while napping...But thanks for making me laugh with this story! If anyone has earned "Runner's Knee" it's you...

I'm a first-time poster and have read all your posts, same as Amy :) Your blog is one of the few things that actually make me laugh out loud in the internet. The end was hysterical, with the moving sidewalk bit, even though I feel bad that you went insane. I can sort of relate...when I flew to LA a few years ago, our flight was delayed for like 9 hours, so we were supposed to leave early in the morning and left in the afternoon. Once we got to the hotel I collapsed on the bed and ordered my parents to get pizza. They wanted me to come with them. Pfft.

Another time I pulled an all-nighter to take a 5 AM flight to see my grandparents, and was immediately forced to go to a funeral of all things, completely jet-lagged in a stuffy church after being awake for about 36-38 hours straight. Not one of my favourite moments. However, the flight home was right on time, so that was nice.

I could not stop laughing at this. I know I should be sympathetic towards the misfortune of others, but... well damn you're just too hilarious. I love the Guava juice picture. I, too, have irresistible cravings for juice.

2) This sort of thing happens to me all the time. Like the time that I won first place in our city bike race and then passed out. Decided that I felt better, and went to summer camp the next day. Started feeling crappy again, and went to the nurse. Three doctors later, turns out I had spinal meningitis. Whoops.

3) I now have the picture of you holding the juice as my desktop background. I look at it and tell myself "See, things aren't THAT bad." And then I burst into giggles. Thanks for that.

I live in Denver and have been to DIA numerous times, and what amazes is me is how effective that woman's voice is at creating a permanent memory. I'm guessing this happened at least two or three years ago, and you can still remember her exact words, it really is incredible to me.

I'm working on finals in the library at my university, and decided to take a break by reading this. I legit think I pissed off everyone on the second floor from laughing so loudly. I couldn't control it.

I'm glad you post about your depressing days to make my stressed out ones even better.

I hate living in Texas. This is how I feel all spring-summer-fall long here and the heat gives me a never ending migraine. I was laughing so hard my husband started begging for the link. You rock, chica!

So uhh, I have also overdosed on flintstone vitamins! I was 8 or 9 and my mom found the family sized bottle half empty and drove me to the hospital in an empty school bus. Gah, I know my life is so glamorous! *blush*

This was absolutely hilarious (and well worth the wait). I had a semi-conscious misadventure in an airport once as well... I was trying to stay awake in order to beat jetlag on the way to India, and wound up getting stuck in the terminal at New Delhi for twenty hours.

I love that you added "The Eye" into the fever-stupor drawing. But yeah, 100 degrees.. welcome to the South. I live in Alabama, so it's not much better. Anyway. I love you Allie. You are an incredible writer, and you have one of the most interesting lives... I think you should write an autobiography. Oh, and can we be best friends?

I too have tried to prove to myself that I wasn't sick. I was 9 and at my very first Gymnastics show, naturally I was in the 'big spotlight' and had to do a one handed cartwheel off of the balance beam. So I get on the balance beam and start running, put one hand down and start going into my cartwheel when my wrist buckles from underneath me. Everyone in the audience is going "OMG!!!!!" and "OHNO!!" Naturally what I do is I get up and do my finish (throw your hands up in the air and jut out your chest).

I didn't break my wrist (had an awesome sprain though) and I went home with a 104.1 degree fever.

I rammed my face into the side of the pool doing a flip turn during a swim meet and bled profusely from both my nose and mouth. I realize now I should have filled my swim suit with ice cubes for maximum hilarity.

wow i too had a psychological breakdown while traveling for a track meet...it was a difficult weekend, and in the airport some of the boys on the team thought it would be funny to steal my stuffed animal lamb that i took on the plane with me for moral support. i thought they threw it in a trash can in the terminal. i wept the entire way from california back to idaho. then i found the lamb in the bag i had checked once i got home. thank you for making me feel better about my own irrationalities :)

That certainly sounds like a Texas summer. I'm sorry your trip here had to be so...scarring, but it seems like anywhere you go, Saint Christopher just turns his back and all the bad luck travel demons maul you. But you are still alive (though how, we will never know), which certainly accounts for something.

I have literally spent the last 19 hours reading your blog in it's entirety. I've only gotten up once to go to the bathroom and get a bag of bugles out of the kitchen. I have a migraine from lack of sleep, and I am starting to see some definition in my abs from continuously laughing so hard. I guess what I'm trying to say is, you are the funniest person ever and if you do not become famous and make millions, I have no faith humanity.

You don't ever do things by halves, do you? Knowing how you're such a magnet for misfortune, I'm surprised you didn't find a scorpion camping out in your shoe before the race.

Breathing was like trying to insufflate syrup through a coffee straw. I'd go with "molasses." I hate visiting Texas in the summer. It's hot, there's nothing to do inside, and there are dry thunderstorms without the thunder part—just non-stop lightning at 4AM.

I used to take naps between classes on campus in two places: the hallway (curled up against my bag o' stuff) and underneath the table in the computer lab. I can fall asleep anywhere.

I've been to DIA before—I abhor that moving sidewalk. Not just because of the annoying voice repeating every five seconds that it's about to end but people never seem to get the idea that there are two lanes of traffic on that thing. Standing and walking.

As sorry as I am to hear about your plight, I must admit that I am very excited to be in the Denver airport later this week, especially with what Kelli said about the moving sidewalk voice. I'm sorry it troubled you, though.

...For the record, I also enjoy the voices in the airports with trains from terminal to terminal: "Stand clear of the closing doors!" The automated man sounds so excited every. Single. Time.

OMG! This is hilarious. I can totally relate, having been in running for six years of my life not that far from where you grew up (I lived in Spokane, Washington).

Which, by the way, I know this is probably really creepy but I've seen your picture on here (in your avatar) and every time, I couldn't help but think I recognized you. Well, now I know where... You ran at Sunfair (in Yakima) in 2002. I did too. And I find it really odd that I somehow came to realize this all on my own since, normally speaking, my memory sucks.

Lying here on my sick bed trawling through the eternity which was once known as the blog-o-sphere (named by some moron with less brain cells than an amoeba), I have been steered in the direction of your writing, and can now sleep soundly in the knowledge that not every blogger is a pretentious, hyped up git with too many doughnuts in their diet.Thank you...

Oh this was excellent. Heat, I can handle. I grew up in West Texas, where there's no humidity at all but we make up for it by making 90F feel like a cool breeze.

Put me in a cold situation and ask me to run, and I'll feel like death in short order. I made the silly mistake of running several miles at a) 40F, and b)7000ft. Lots of vomit was involved, a migraine, and shakes for hours. Oh yes, give me heat any day!

OH god, I feel you on the airport-while-sleep-deprived. There comes a point where if you don't find someplace quiet and comfortable to lie down, you're going to cut a bitch or ten. Last time this happened to me was during a 27 hour marathon of flights from Doha, Qatar to Indianapolis, Indiana. Spoiler alert: There is nothing that even resembles a non-stop flight between those two points on the Earth. By the time I got home, I was so tired that every time I blinked I'd doze off for a split second and dream. It is not a pleasant feeling.

Your stories are hilarious! I was just introduced to this blog by my girlfriend, and it's quite a find. We were in DIA yesterday, and I could see my gf's irritation level going up with each "Caution! The moving walkway is nearing an end. Please watch your step. Thank you!"

Oh man, you wanna talk sickness stories? I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago (i'm in remission now) but before I even thought about heading over to the doctors to get myself looked at, I waited for 4 months hoping the problems would go away on their own. The three most recognizable symptoms of my cancer are unexplained weight loss, night sweats and excessive fatigue. I had just moved into my own place for my first year of college and I was eating less to save money so that explained the weight loss, our heater was constantly stuck at 35 degrees celcius so that explains the night sweats and the fatigue was obviously due to heat making me lose sleep. I felt everything was just dandy and continued surviving off of cup-a-noodles and midnight movies. I feel asleep in class almost every day and my teachers were getting mildly irritated with me, understandably so. One day my field production teacher came over to my seat to gently wake me up so I could finish listening to him go on for another 3 hours about light temperatures when (and I remember none of this) I sat bolt upright, punched him in the gut, yelled "you're not the boss of me" and stormed out of the class. I somehow managed to get 4 blocks away from the school and ended up at the mcdonalds asking them if they would please sell me "a tub of mcflurry". The clerk was unimpressed and when I refused to leave without my damn ice cream, he called the cops because I was apparently high and frightening the other customers. The police were actually quite nice about it when they saw I wasn't high or crazy, they drove me back to the dorm (with a warning about public threats) where I sweated away the night and skipped class the next day. Later, when I found out I was actually essentially dying at the time, I went back to find the damn clerk at the mcdonalds and get a well deserved apology. He wasn't there so I waited outside for an hour, hoping he'd show up. Defeated, I bought a happy meal and left. Worst adventure ever.

I've always said, "don't commit a crime in Texas, cause they'll fry your ass," which is good enough reason to not go to Texas (not that I commit crimes, by the way), but now I have another reason to never visit the state. No offense to any Texans out there, but I already live in AZ and have to deal with 120-degree weather. I'm just too much of a wuss to deal with humidity, too.

So is this a "to-be-continued"? Will we find out what happened during and after the breakdown, and how you got back to Montana, if indeed you got back? Loved this entry. Thank you for writing. Hope you're feeling better.

Thanks for sharing your mental and physical traumas on t'internet in such a funny way.

Are you this funny in real life... do you go through every day with people snorting, having fits of giggles, and peeing themselves? Or are you like me and the funniness (is that a word?) requires thought and editing?

I think I'm going to have to re-read this post with the new knowledge that you were 21 at the time. What the heck were you doing overdosing on Flinstones vitamins at 21?! Up until you tried to buy beer I was picturing you as a ten year old.

I feel bad for laughing because I know exactly hwo it feels to have a psychotic breakdown in an airport, but you're writing and pictures are too darn hilarious. I hope things worked out well in the end.

Oh, bless your sweet heart! It seems like you never can keep yourself well!I feel guilty over how hard I laughed at your pain. Particularly the melty ice cubes in the track uniform! The facial expressions in that panel are particularly hilarious. And, as a person who handles head about the same way, I have got to give you props for even pretending to be alive after a fever that high in that kind of heat. I would have laid down under a bulldozer or something.

Since I live in Austin and grew up here, my first response was "OMG ALLIE WAS IN AUSTIN." My second thought was to figure out where you were. I've concluded you were down south near the Tony Burger Center, where it is creepy and scary and probably carries plague rats to this date. You poor thing.

One would think the whole 'growing up in Texas' thing would make it easier for me to adjust to the sudden heat dump that happens in like, February. But no, every year I'm startled to see the temperatures peak at 107 and promptly go outside to feel if it's "really that hot". That's when I collapse into a pool of sweat and defeat and try to hibernate the summer away. It sucks that you almost died in ABIA (or maybe Mueller... that place was creepy), the horror!

I've lived in West Texas my whole life, and I'll never acclimate to the heat and humidity, so I'm surprised you survived! That's good though, cuz if you didn't, we never would get to read your awesome posts!

P.S. Tap water tastes bad all across Texas. It sucks.

P.P.S. Just thought I'd let you know that we West Texans also get random thunderstorms at night (right now actually). Never during the day. It's comforting to know that during tornado season, if there is a tornado, it will be at night when no one can see it coming like in the movie Twister when people were watching The Shining at the drive-in theater...

1. When I was 12 I was going to my first synchronized swimming meet. Two days before, I came down with a Horrible Death Flu. My mother told me that if my temperature hadn't gone down by the night before, I couldn't go. I SWEAR TO GOD I WILLED IT DOWN. Didn't do that well at the meet, though... ^_^

2. I don't deal well with heat either. Moving to Australia was a MISTAKE.

3. Hong Kong Airport has these super annoying bastard escalators that not only tell you that the escalator is about to end but also that you should watch children and elderly people. In English and Cantonese. And it repeats this constantly. When I had an eight-hour layover in Hong Kong after suffering insane motion sickness on the flight from Paris and still not feeling too flash... yeahhhhhh.

2. If you hate warmth and sunshine, I can recommend a move to Scotland. We don't have sun here. (Of course, this makes going on holiday a challenge because if we go somewhere with nice weather we just stare at the sky in bafflement shrieking about the giant ball of yellow and why isn't the sky GREY????)

I may be a bit over-tired, over-hormonal, or perhaps it's just your writing that really moves me to the depths of my soul, but I totally cried when reading the part where you were in the store looking for juice.

i feel your pain, as i sit here wide awake, cracked out, coughing up dark green mucus, after having contracted a seemingly innocent head cold from an adult child who coughed incessantly for seven hours while at her longtime friend's apartment, where i also happened to be visiting. i was powerless to say anything given the nature of their relationship and my having just met the sick and ignorant woman. now as i sit here on the verge of having to take an unpaid day for being sick in spring, my immune system is bypassing my compassionate nature and honestly i would like to give that woman a sound spanking and send her back to etiquette school. so even though your hilariously tragic (only because you survived) caused me to break into a fit of wracking coughs, i thank you for sharing your story that makes my current miserable state seem like a walk in the park, and for the laughs. you will make a lot of money someday, if you haven't already done so.

I'm gonna jump in here and join those saying YAY EUGENE! :D Also, I am very sad for your experience. :( I haven't had one exactly like it, but I did have a 24 hour journey from Eugene to Wales that ended with me sobbing in a dorm room over a bag of trail mix! :D No sleep and illness combined with travel is a bad combination, no matter how you look at it. :P

Allie, I understand. I grew up in Austin, and currently live in Houston. I never appreciated Austin until I moved to the gulf coast. Austin isn't nearly as bad, but you still have to be able to withstand heat.

Once I was standing in a line trying to get some papers done for almost two hours. I didn't have breakfast that morning, it was hot and this ANNOYING girl next to me wouldn't shut up. It was finally my turn after two hours and then it all went dark. I actually had a dream or something like that of me being home in my bed sleeping and dreaming - weird. When I came to my senses I realized my legs are up in the air held up by some girl(I still can't believe I actually had a skirt on)and she was slapping me and pouring water all over my face. So embarrassing. Anyways, love your posts. And just so you know, you are read in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina:)

I was gearing myself up for not laughing at you being stranded in an airport when you were lying under the row of seats, having been lost in a foreign airport without my passport or any ID at all, but then you didn't even get stranded.

Also this reminds me...when we were moving to Australia from England we had a 14 hour stop over in Singapore. We'd book a hotel but they lost our booking so we didn't have a room...I had to sleep on airport chairs while my parents took turns watching the bags. YAY for airports..

You could make dying puppies funny! Obviously instead of the normal genetic structure most people have, you've just got awesome genes. I think that's how superman gets his power too.Thanks for ensuring my day starts off with laughter!

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I'm laughing WITH you, not AT you, really! Picture #4 is totally what I felt like when my husband forced me to drag myself to the ER for a throat and sinus infection yesterday. I was kicking myself for not having printed out your pain scale before I went. You are truly awesome - when I read your blog and look at your pics, I swear, I feel like you somehow managed to channel the weird and fucked up thoughts of people like me, and put them into pictures that I'm not creative enough to do. And it makes it more funny because I'm blond, and therefore can identify on an even better level. The best compliment I can probably give you is this - my son has severe autism, I'm also on the spectrum... but you make me laugh my ass off when you use the word "retard". Normally, that makes me want to inflict grievous bodily harm, but you somehow use it in just the right way. There - that's the highest compliment I can come up with. I'll totally be donating once I'm not flat-ass broke, if you promise to keep blogging!

Aaaah, high fevers are NEVER good! I managed to get one around 104-105 on Boxing Day one year. All i can remember for three days is my parents telling me to get a grip and stumbling too and from my bed to the bathroom and back again. How you managed to walk everywhere i do not know! Kudos!I LOVE your blog by the way. Totally makes my day. If i'm allowed to say that on the post about you nearly self-combustioning.

This is so, so funny, and also from now on when you go anywhere, or even when you stay at home, you should bring along a minder. The minder can be in charge of juice, and of not letting you wander around city streets when you have a brain-frying fever, and also of giving you sleeping pills or something for the love of god.

I was sick like that last year. I sat in a delirium stupor alone in my apartment for two days, sending people incomprehensible text messages like "I don't remember your face!" and "I am an unrealized chicken farm!"

There was also that fun sickie moment everyone has where you go to the bathroom and just glare in confusion at the toilet because you're not sure which end you should place over the hole to release whatever noxious substance your body has decided to unleash upon you. I call it "Toilet Roulette."

Ah yes, the pond water. I know it well. (And it's the reason those of us who live here use bottled water A LOT.) Sounds like you got here just in time for the first heat wave to turn the water supply.

Basically, it's hot in Texas. But the water is usually cool. When it goes from hot to SUMMER HOT, OMG!!!! the change in temp makes all that beautiful still water not so still. Everything on the bottom heads for the top. Everything on the top heads for the bottom and all the gunk that the catfish use for a wallow hangs somewhere in the middle and gets into the drinking water.

Catfish flavored water is not pleasant, neither is catfish flavor tea, Kool Aid or Dr. Pepper. It'll settle in a couple of months... and then do it again come winter.

I just started reading your blog a week or so ago, and I've spent way more time than I should catching up on all of your posts. Your blog is awesomesauce. Oh, and the pain scale? Pure genius. I will bring it with me the next time we're subjected to an ER visit. Your art makes me giggle all the way down in the cockles of my heart.

Good Lord, girl. How on earth do you manage to get yourself in these situations?! It's odd--you have so much fear, and (in this case) so little foresight/true sense of self-preservation. All though that could have been the fever. :P

" I woke up and immediately decided that I needed juice more than anything in the world. I would have shanked an infant for juice" is one of the best things I have ever heard - mainly bc I have been there.

OMG you are hysterical! LOVE you! Keep it up! I love crazy runners even more insane than myself! XOXO Pick yourself up and come to RunningAHEAD! Me and Zoomy want you there! I bet you could be the "Champion" at the Las Vegas HM in Dec! That is if I don't kick your itchy butt!

oh no you poor sick thing! i had the swine last year and pretty much hallucinated something pretty close to your story...:/ except i can't write about it so awesomely using such frickin cool pictures!!!!!

Those moving sidewalk announcements are so irritating! First of all, you can SEE when the walkway comes to an end, unless you're blind, in which case it's probably not even safe to use the walkway at all! Second of all, you can hear the announcement long before the walkway is about to end! Unless you're deaf. In which case, you don't have to worry about the robot lady at all. Uhhh...yeah.

Sorry, those announcements annoy me. HILARIOUS (and sad) post by the way!!!!!! Sorry you had to go through that!!! One of my most traumatizing memories ever is being horribly ill while alone at a hotel, and I didn't even have to run!

Oh wow. Just wow. This is as funny as anything you've written before, but I feel that you've also taken it to a new level: you've started to introduce awesome new words! I've never ever ever EVAAAAR heard of insufflate before. But now I am going to use it at every possible opportunity. Thank you Allie.

Ohhhh this made me giggle so much... sorry it happened to you but what a great story! The "yellow things aisle"... "I would have shanked an infant for juice"... You're an awesome storyteller, and I too love the fireflies picture! Great job Allie!

Add to this that I would be attempting to race a 5k despite the fact that I have never been good at handling the heat even when lying motionless on my floor in my underwear in front of a fan, and you have a disaster waiting to happen.

This was me in Australia during a November heatwave in an apartment with no air conditioning. I had to get engagement pictures taken on one of the hottest days (I was moving back to the states a few days later) and almost passed out. And now I may end up moving to Texas for my doctorate (after living most of my life in northern Utah.) My husband is seriously concerned I'll go crazy and/or die of heatstroke if we end up there. Good times!

Seriously though, where was your coach?! Wasn't there anyone to make sure you were going to live through the ordeal? :/

Why did no one take you to the hospital?I got sick in Texas, too. I think it's an allergy to cowboy hats.Also, there have been lots of signs of your success, which are all great and everything, but I can tell you've really arrived now that your first comments on a new post are all "firsties! omg! hahaha! i'm first! can u blv it?!"

ALLIE!!! This is possibly one of your greatest posts ever. But you, my good lady, are toying with my emotions. I don't know why, but I check here every day for a new post and then die a little inside. But this, made everything better!

First off, if you're a competitive person like me, sorry that you didn't get to finish the race! That must have been rough.

I went to a swim meet and was really sick. I spent most of the meet in a daze, wasn't able to qualify for provincials, and then immediately after my last race I went into the change-room and proceeded to throw up what felt like everything I had ever eaten in my life. Made me feel better, though.

Hilarious post. I have to admit, I literally slapped my knee over the fireflies pic.